Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described herein are not prior art to the claims in the present application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
In some optical systems, optical signals traversing the optical systems may experience optical phenomena that degrade the quality of the signal detected. One such phenomenon is PDL. PDL is differential signal attenuation experienced between different polarization states of an optical signal due to the non-isotropic nature of some optical media.
An optical channel monitor (OCM) is an example of an optical system that may impart PDL to optical signals that traverse the OCM. The PDL of some OCM designs may result in very low yield, e.g., less than 50% yield, unless the PDL is compensated in the OCM.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one exemplary technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.